Dixon calls last drinks at Blues Point pub

After a decade of pulling beers, businessman and former Qantas and Tourism Australia chair Geoff Dixon is calling last drinks as landlord of the 160-year-old Blues Point Hotel on Sydney’s lower north shore.

Dixon paid about $6 million for the pub at 116 Blues Point Road, McMahons Point, and following renovations, the sale price is expected to be about $10 million.

Geoff Dixon is selling the Blues Point Hotel in McMahons Point on Sydney’s north shore.

Having amassed a large portfolio of high-profile pubs over the past 10 years with ad man and investor John Singleton, Dixon will now just hold the Plough & Harrow Hotel in Camden in Sydney’s south-west. It was the first pub he purchased for his private G & D Dixon Investments in 2012.

Built in 1864, the 580-square-metre Blues Point Hotel is spread across two levels and was one of the first pubs built on Sydney’s north shore.

“It has been a popular drinking place even before the opening of the Harbour Bridge, being there from the early 1860s when the road led to the Sydney Harbour ferry crossing,” Dixon said in a statement.

“We’ve thoroughly enjoyed our ownership of the Blues Point Hotel over the past decade, and have had numerous approaches from people interested in buying the pub, so we’ve decided the time is right to bring it to market formally.”

‘Despite inflationary headwinds, there still exists an unsatisfied depth of equity looking to be invested into the pub sector.’

HTL Property agent Andrew Jolliffe

The hotel is being sold through HTL Property agents Andrew Jolliffe, Sam Handy and Dan Dragicevich, who expect both local and interstate hoteliers to show interest in the property.

“We are expecting interest from commercial property investors who identify with the scale and quality of the holding on the main thoroughfare joining the North Sydney CBD to Sydney Harbour,” Jolliffe said.

HTL is also selling the popular eastern suburbs-based pub The Light Brigade on behalf of the Bayfield family.

Jolliffe said after a quieter start to the year after a hectic few years, the pub sector is coming back onto the radar for buyers.

“Despite inflationary headwinds, there still exists an unsatisfied depth of equity looking to be invested into the pub sector,” Jolliffe said.

Nearby to the Paddington pub is the Unicorn Hotel in Oxford Street – commonly known as the “Fringe Bar” – which was bought by JDA Hotels, led by brothers John and Dean Feros. It was sold for $12 million by investor George Kazzi, who bought the freehold in 2020, and the Mary’s hospitality brand, who owned the leasehold interest.

Steering that sales campaign was JLL executive vice president Ben McDonald and senior vice president Kate MacDonald, along with IB Property Director Steffan Ippolito.

MacDonald said the Unicorn is one of those pubs that evokes an emotive response from those who know it, and it came to market at a time when there has been “greater focus on food and beverage operations”.

On Sydney’s south coast, media veteran Bruce Gordon also took advantage of the rising demand for pubs with the sale of the Scarborough Hotel, north of Wollongong, to Glenn Piper’s rebranded Epochal group for $9.5 million through agency Colliers.

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